


The Care and Feeding of Confidential Informants

by DizzyDrea



Category: White Collar
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzyDrea/pseuds/DizzyDrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Franklin was a good FBI Agent, but he never counted on falling in love with his Confidential Informant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Care and Feeding of Confidential Informants

**Author's Note:**

> So, I really enjoyed the irony in Prisoner's Dilemma. Franklin got too close to his CI, which is exactly the spot Peter finds himself in. I just had to write about it. My favorite part of the episode was the CI-off, though I couldn't find a way to work it in here. I did find a way to fit in Mozzie and the Zen Garden. It's a shame we won't be going back. The information regarding working with Confidential Informants comes straight from the person who wrote the book, literally. James E. Hight is an FBI agent who has written extensively about the relationship between an agent and his/her CI. The rules that Franklin quotes are taken from his article, [located here](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_5_69/ai_63016003/?tag=content;col1).
> 
> Originally posted on LiveJournal.
> 
> Disclaimer: White Collar is the property of Jeff Eastin, Fox Television Studios, USA Networks, and a lot of other people who aren't me. I do this for fun and for practice. Mostly for fun.

~o~ 

Jack Franklin was a good FBI Agent. 

After twelve years at the Bureau, being a Special Agent had become a part of him, like breathing. He liked the work, and moreover, the work suited him. He was good at it, better than a lot of guys, and he never got tired of the rush he got when he finally caught the perp. 

But somehow, after all he'd given to the Bureau, after dedicating his life to catching the bad guys, he'd found himself on the other side of the law, and he wasn't entirely comfortable with that. 

He glanced sidelong at Peter, sitting beside him in this weird Zen Garden they'd found themselves in. Peter Burke was also a good agent, one of the best the Bureau had. His case clearance rate was phenomenal, a fact that made Jack just a little jealous, especially now that he might lose it all. 

He sighed, turning away to watch the little con man prune his bonsai tree. How had it all gone so wrong? Well, he knew the answer to that. It'd all gone wrong the day he met Rebecca Vidal. 

He could feel his pulse rate pick up ever so slightly at just the thought of her. She was beautiful, wild, a little dangerous. He'd known it was a bad idea to recruit her as his CI, but he'd done it anyway. 

He'd taken the seminar, years ago at Quantico, so he knew how this was supposed to work. The Bureau called it _Asset Management_ ; the agents had nicknamed the course _The Care and Feeding of Confidential Informants_. 

There were certain basic tenets that every agent should follow, when dealing with CIs: keep your promises, tell the truth and keep your CI's identity safe. You do that and you and your CI could have a long and fruitful partnership. He'd kept up his end of the bargain with Rebecca over the years. He'd never lied to her, always did what he said he was going to do and hadn't to this day given her name up. 

But there was a second group of basic tenets that he'd blown spectacularly, and he knew it. Keep it professional, keep it public and keep it polite. Oh, he'd kept it professional at first. Meeting Rebecca in diners and coffee shops. He'd been respectful, polite, but kept his distance. He wanted her to believe that she was valuable to him, not just an asset to be managed but a person to be respected. That was how this worked; you gave your CI respect, and you got it in return. 

But somehow things had changed. Their conversations had become about more than just the cases she was helping on. He asked about her life, he told her about his. He acted more like an AA sponsor sometimes, checking in with her just to make sure she hadn't boosted a car lately. They started meeting in more private places, away from prying eyes. The first time they kissed was in a booth in the back of a hotel bar. 

He could still remember the sizzle of attraction mixed with the adrenaline rush of how wrong it was. He'd been cooked from that moment on, and the worst part was he'd known it. But he'd consoled himself with the knowledge that they were putting crooks behind bars. Who cared what his relationship with his CI was when the end result was a higher clearance rate? 

But secrets like that couldn't stay secret for long, not when he worked for an institution that had perfected the art of suspicion. When his affair was revealed, he'd been busted down to Bank Fraud—Outer Siberia as far as the Bureau was concerned. And he'd been forbidden to see or speak to Rebecca. 

The very thought still made his breath catch in his throat, and he had to take a few deep breaths as he waited for it to pass. 

"You okay?" Peter asked sotto voce as he leaned over just slightly, eyes still on the con man—Mozzie, he thought the guy's name was—as if he was going to disappear. And who knew? Maybe he would. Peter kept some interesting company these days. 

"Yeah," he breathed out. "Just thinking." 

"About Rebecca?" Peter asked. 

He took his eyes off Mozzie for a moment, looking him in the eye. Jack knew what he was looking for, and knew what he'd find. But it was what Jack found in Peter's eyes that surprised him. 

"You too?" he asked. 

He didn't really expect an answer, so he was even more surprised when he saw Peter's shoulders slump ever so slightly as he rubbed a hand over his face. 

"Yeah." 

Jack just nodded, returning his attention to Mozzie as he watched Peter do the same. He'd thought he was the only one, but apparently getting attached to a CI was a more common hazard of the job than he'd originally suspected. 

"I thought—" he stopped, knowing he had no right to ask anything, not when he'd gotten Peter into this mess in the first place. 

"You thought what?" Peter asked, turning to look at him once again. 

Jack looked at him, really looked at him for the first time since this whole thing had started. He could see the stress in Peter's face and the lines of his shoulders. Peter Burke, who was a star at the Bureau, had effectively gone on the run with a disgraced agent. He really had no right to ask for anything, especially if it meant exposing someone else's secrets. After all, that's how this whole thing got started in the first place. Still… 

"I thought you were married." 

"I am," Peter said, and for just a moment, he could see the flash of a smile cross his face. But it was gone in an instant, as thought it had never been there. 

"It's none of my business," Jack said after a moment. It really wasn't, and he didn't think Peter would want to commiserate with him anyway. 

Peter sighed, turning back to watch Mozzie as he continued to prune the bonsai. "Neal is… special; a friend—a good friend. My wife actually got there before I did. She's always been… fond of Neal." 

The smile was back, just a small one tipping one corner of his mouth, but Jack knew what that smile was for. He was remembering, and right about that moment, Jack could imagine just what he was remembering. He only hoped they were good memories. 

"So, you, your wife and—" 

Mozzie's head whipped around, his eyes gone wide under his coke-bottle glasses. Jack could see the frown on Peter's face, and the way Mozzie's lips thinned into a line as he turned back to his tree. 

"You two are ruining the chi, you know," Mozzie said. 

"You'll survive," Peter shot back. 

He didn't go on, and Jack figured that was about as much as he was going to get from the man, and he was okay with that. It was enough to know that he wasn't alone in this, any of it. But he was surprised yet again to find that Peter was willing to talk. 

"The thing with Neal is that he's a con man. That's what he's always been and I don't think he knows how to be anything else. I'd like him to change—" and at this, Peter's lips thinned into a grim line—"but I don't know if he can, much less if he even wants to." 

"So, what do you do?" 

"I accept Neal for who he is, and hope that he'll want to be more than the man he used to be." 

"Just like that?" Jack asked. He wasn't trying to be funny, but Peter cracked a smile just the same. 

"I wish." He paused, then went on in a softer voice. "Neal knows I won't protect him if he betrays me or the Bureau. I can't and I won't put my wife and my career at risk for him. Especially for him. But that doesn't mean that I haven't smoothed things over and let things go that I probably wouldn't have before." 

Jack looked down at his hands, clasped around his legs. "Do you love him?" 

Peter sucked in a breath, releasing it slowly. Jack figured he probably hadn't said it out loud to anyone, besides his wife and probably his CI. 

"Yeah, I do. God help me, I do love him." 

Jack looked up, past Mozzie into the distance, his heart pounding in his chest. "Yeah, me too." 

"Some law men we turned out to be," Peter said with a small chuckle. 

Jack had to chuckle at that. He hadn't thought his relationship with Rebecca made him a bad cop, but maybe it had. Because even though he was still catching criminals, he'd compromised his morals for her. Was that any better? 

"Is it worth it?" he asked quietly. 

Peter sighed. "Yeah. It's worth it. At least, it is to me." 

Jack only nodded. He hoped so, because he couldn't handle losing everything only to find out at the end of it all that it wasn't worth it. 

He returned to watching Mozzie, noticing the man turn back and give Peter a long, measuring look. Peter returned the scrutiny, and something seemed to pass between the two men. Mozzie didn't look any more happy to have the two feds in his domain, but he seemed satisfied with Peter, at least. 

He'd gotten the feeling that Mozzie was Neal's friend, and that he was less than thrilled that Neal had gotten himself mixed up with a fed. But the look on Mozzie's face just before he turned back around suggested to him that maybe he approved of Peter a little more now than he had before. 

Jack ghosted a smile. Well, if nothing else, he hoped things worked out better for Peter than they had for him. And if that was the only good to come out of this whole situation, then maybe it was worth it after all. 

~Finis


End file.
